If you do get a trawler, make sure it has a staysail on it and she aint a roller! That slow roll under way could be a killer lol. And dont go for those retractable thrusters either. When those seals leak under way its amazing how much water squirts in on every wave. Congratulations on your new endevours. The gadgets should keep you busy as well as weather and route planning. awesome!

He told us he was looking at a trawler at that speed probably in the 65 ft range not my bus it would be a parting of the way for me I would sell it he will never get 30 cents on the dollar but it not going up in value in 10 years you can place money on that

I tried to talk Sean into a Hatteras 58LRC, but he felt it was to big for them. I'm guessing he's looking at in the 48-53ft range. Personally-I think the Hatteras 58LRC is one of the best designed boats of all time. Twin commercially rated 6-71's in a nice stand up engine room, cruise at 8knots at 1,400rpm-engines last forever. Heavy displacement (around 80,000lbs), plenty of fuel and space to roam around the boat and available for less then $500k. But, I'm confident Sean found a good one. Good Luck, TomC

I spent a half hour this morning typing a detailed response to the last half dozen or so posts, and then I hit a function key accidentally and it all disappeared. I had to quit to get Thanksgiving dinner started, and now the company is here. I'll type it all back in tomorrow or so -- I'm not ignoring you

I spent a half hour this morning typing a detailed response to the last half dozen or so posts, and then I hit a function key accidentally and it all disappeared. I had to quit to get Thanksgiving dinner started, and now the company is here. I'll type it all back in tomorrow or so -- I'm not ignoring you

I have had that happen but generally only on relatively short posts. If one is going to do a real long one, it may be worth it to do it in Word and copy and paste it. I have done that other places to save double work.

sean i am sure your looking for a used boat but if not there is a boat factory in costa rica that will custom build they are sold all over the world you might get a great deal buying direct from factory / cut out the middle man and dealer second i known people in the yacth club a lot of boats from the usa / canada come up for sale after there owner decide to stay hear john / lidia from costa rica ps. only 2 hour flight from miami fl.

Boy Did I find I was not a sailor when I had to ride a Coast Guard Buoy Tender for 24 hr venture to relocate a buoy, That pig rolled as in a big storm, looked out very clam water, round bottom boat Called "Cow Slip". I was the factory service rep for ASCO and one of their ABT's had an issue, was asked to go along incase it failed, it never failed again, I slept about 20 of the 24 hrs in the Cheif's quarters. Got off, went directly to motel, slept another 12 hrs, bed kept rolling. That was the end of my dreaming of getting any boat and living on it. Gave up on that idea and got the MCI in 1988 and never go sea sick again.Dave

I know a guy from CA that has a business and wants to move out of CA bad!

He has been here a couple times a yr since we moved to our new place close to I-40 and we showed him a "property" just down the road that the "owning bank" wanted a "grand slam" on when we were looking for a place.

It has a VERY large building and 11 acres of land with it and the building is temp controlled.

But the day we closed on the place we bought and now operate from, that bank called and told us they wish we would reconsider. (they said their counter offer to ours was "just a ball park" figure and they were VERY willing to negotiate!)

When we showed him the place his exact words were "I'd love to buy it, but I'd have to have someone rent it for a while until I could get moved out here and into it!"

So maybe.......If you were committed to storing your bus there, and he was still interested in it maybe the two of you could work out a storage plan.

It's literally 5 mins. down the road from me and I'm sure I could be persuaded to stop in and check on things.

So you might touch base with "the Don" and see if he'd be interested in such a venture.

It's located exactly 1/2 way between BNA and MEM (about 2 hrs) and very easy access to I-40. Large enough it could store 20 buses inside an a whole bunch outside if someone were interested in starting a "busnut friendly" storage facility. BK

Several requests for Sean to share what boat he's looking at, but I guess it's a National secret. Good Luck, TomC

Sorry about that -- until the offer was accepted by the seller and we had a signed contract, I was reluctant to post anything here (or anywhere else on the Internet) that the seller could find. It's amazing how easy it is, actually, and more than once I've used people's postings in what they thought were obscure forums to competitive advantage. Now that the contract is signed, I can be a little more forthcoming. When I typed this post the first time (before I lost it to the web gods), I wrote that I would be posting details to the blog in due time. That post got written yesterday, so you can read more about the boat here:http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2012/11/we-bought-boat.html

...Perhaps another alternative is a busnut host to care for Odyssey while you sail the seven seas?

I'd be thinking that the coach needs to have a committed caretaker. You will be returning to disaster without some level of maintenance as the years go by, unless you are planning to store it inoperative and pickled properly.

Yes, we are open to the caretaker option and I have at least one offer. We'd also consider "renting" or "leasing" it to someone who could use it in our absence. As far as pickling is concerned, we are on the fence between doing that or just stabilizing the fuel and coming back every few months to start it up and breeze it out. The latter would make it much easier to use it, should the need arise due to, for example, a family medical crisis.

That post also goes into some detail about our search process, for anyone interested.

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... and she aint a roller! That slow roll under way could be a killer lol.

All boats roll, and ocean-going boats generally are rollier than other types. This boat has hydraulically-operated active-fin stabilizers, very similar to what you would find on a modern cruise ship, except they are not retractable. A gyroscope commands the stabizers to counteract roll; they work a lot like ailerons on an airplane.

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...And dont go for those retractable thrusters either. When those seals leak under way its amazing how much water squirts in on every wave.

I'm not sure what a retractable thruster is. This boat does have a bow thruster, but it is in a fixed tunnel. It's a single-screw boat, so maneuvering around the dock is made much simpler by having the thruster.

...Boat people are a different breed you don't here the stories about fuel mileage lol they just fill up from 800 gals to 4000 of blue fuel and say that will run me for a few days

Ours would use 51 gals a hour @22 knots cruising along the coast with 2- 900hp V10 Man engines not for the faint of heart when you got the Wright Fuel Card bill each month

This boat is a bit more fuel-efficient than that, one of the many reasons we went with a trawler and not a planing boat. She supposedly burns about 5gph at an 8-knot cruise, and at 7 knots she should get around 2 nmpg. With 3,300 gallons of diesel tankage, that's plenty to cross any ocean. Also we can do what we do today with the bus -- arbitrage fuel prices by buying in bulk when the price is cheap. And, with tanks that big, we can take advantage of bulk pricing by calling a heating oil dealer, and having them meet us at a dock with the delivery truck.

What's "blue fuel"? I have never heard that term. Marine diesel is typically red, from the same dye as heating oil and off-road fuel. Ironically, even though marine diesel does not carry the highway tax, it is often more expensive than road fuel just due to supply, demand, and logistics. Another reason why having the fuel truck meet you is a lot cheaper.

... he will never get 30 cents on the dollar but it not going up in value in 10 years you can place money on that

Just to be clear, I do not expect the value of the bus to increase, no matter what the market does. Anyone sitting on an RV of any sort right now waiting for the market to recover to pre-2008 levels, or really any recovery at all, is fooling himself.

Instead, what I am saying is that below about 30 cents on the dollar, the bus is worth more to me as a future asset than the money I would get for it. While there is some amount of gambling involved here, it's mostly simple math. With hotel rooms running $100+ per night, plus the cost of dining out, etc., it does not take many nights of using the bus, at roughly $10-$20 per day, to offset many of the costs of storing it. I figure an average of just four weeks a year of using it would mostly pay for the storage, and then we'd have it to come back to whenever we are done with the boat.

While four weeks a year in the bus sounds like a lot, we have five aging parents between us. It is only a matter of time before we will need to spend a few weeks here or there taking care of one or more of them.

Even if we only use the bus an average of one week a year, the worst case is that it will have cost us perhaps $30,000 to keep the bus for a decade -- no way will we be able to buy another similar bus for that then.

I tried to talk Sean into a Hatteras 58LRC, but he felt it was to big for them...

When we finally got aboard a 58LRC, it was really just too big in every respect. Subjectively, it felt lots bigger than the 60-footer we nearly bought in Seattle. Also, none of them was in our price range, and that's even considering they are already 30-year-old boats.

... there is a boat factory in costa rica that will custom build they are sold all over the world you might get a great deal buying direct from factory

I will keep that in mind if this deal falls through. But frankly, even in Costa Rica or China, having a boat similar to this one built from scratch would be probably twice or maybe three times what we are spending used. Right now, Turkey is about the cheapest place to build a boat, and when I saw the pricing I stopped looking.

If you think about it, could any of us afford to build our bus from scratch today, from the axles up, even in Costa Rica, Turkey, or anywhere? Even if you get the labor nearly free, by the time you add together even wholesale pricing on all the pieces (engine, transmission, axles, wheels, tires, steel, aluminum, miles of wiring, instruments, windows, the list goes on), you'd be talking more money than a complete used conversion.

I know a guy from CA that has a business and wants to move out of CA bad! ... So maybe.......If you were committed to storing your bus there, and he was still interested in it maybe the two of you could work out a storage plan. ...

Thanks, Bryce, I will keep that option in mind if more conventional means do not pan out.